The World Pride organisers have made mistakes and must share some of the blame for the current fiasco. However, they are not the sole villains. The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, could have rescued Pride but has apparently chosen to not do so. The actions and inactions of the Greater London Authority (GLA) have compounded the problems that Pride now faces.
Can you imagine what it would be like to wake up one morning to discover that it was suddenly illegal for you to be you? That the law said because you had blue eyes, or were short or because you wrote with your left hand you could go to jail. The character I'm best known for - Captain Jack in Torchwood - spends his life fighting every kind of threat to humanity you could think of. That's all fantasy, of course, but this is real. People are being killed and many, many more live in daily fear for their lives. And the threat comes from something that is much harder to fight than fictional aliens - homophobia based on prejudice, hatred and ignorance.
We still live in a world in which a professional footballer will tweet homophobic messages to thousands of followers and not think of the consequences; will also still live in a world where people are being hung because they are gay. There's clearly a fight still to be won, and events such as National Student Pride underline this very fact.